“Shhh, don't spook her.” I whisper.
“How do you know it's a 'her'?” Jordan whispers back.
“I guess I always just assumed because they call her Nessie.”
“Grandma says that assuming makes an ass out of you and me.” We both giggle at the idea of my prim, evangelical mother using profanity as a teaching tool.
“Actually, I think asking the nurse to bring us freshly-warmed blankets every half hour makes an ass out of you and me.”
“No Mom. That's just you.”
It is 2007 and Alice, who is still called Jordan, is fourteen. She is decked out in camouflage pants and an olive drab t-shirt. Her dirty-blond hair, chopped into a crude crew cut, smells like that of any other sweaty teenage boy. I know this because we are sharing a pillow in the belly of Dominican Hospital's ER. We have been here for five hours and it will be six more before they strap her to a gurney in preparation for transport to the psychiatric hospital in Fremont.
The room itself is larger than most Emergency Room cubicles, perhaps the size of a small surgical bay. One whole wall is glass and faces the central nurse's station. Drawn across this window from floor to ceiling is a light blue curtain which gently billows each time the nearby air vents kick on. Some time after midnight, one of the nurses lowered the lights in our room and now the shadow of the crossbeam in the curtained window moves and morphs like a serpent on the water. The rippling shadow has become our Loch Ness Monster. Her head and humps, where they break the surface of the waves, are darker than the rest of her snaking body. In this brief moment, as in the eye of a great hurricane, we are blanketed in an almost magical sense of calm.
Twelve hours ago, I casually opened my child's dresser drawer in search of socks and found instead a virtual pharmacy. Liquids, capsules and tablets in a variety of boxes and bottles were casually tossed in amid the cartoon-print pajamas and boxer shorts. It is one of those moments where everything you think you know shifts. Do I really have a child so brazen that she doesn't even bother to hide her drugs? Do I really have a child who uses drugs?
Jordan had already left for school, so I there was a wide window of at least six hours to comprehend what lay before me and figure out an appropriate response. In the meantime, I busied myself collecting the evidence in an overturned milk-crate which usually served as a bookshelf. Empty bottles of Robutussin, blister-packs of Dramamine and an odd assortment of what turned out to be caffeine pills, Linsopril and Ritalin filled the crate which had, moments before, housed Dr. Seuss, Douglas Adams and a stack of WW II history books.
When I finished with the drawer, I turned a suspicious eye to the rest of the room. If I were a fourteen year-old, where would I hide my stash? The small bedroom that Jordan shared with her brother Mouse had the basic amenities … a bunk-bed, an upright dresser with a small TV/VHS combo perched on top, a disastrously disorganized closet, strewn with a mess of (mostly abandoned) toys, the afore-mentioned milk-crate bookshelf and a Vietnam-era footlocker. Bingo.
I sat down in front of the footlocker and pulled the makeshift evidence crate closer so I could load whatever I found into it. Unlatching the lock and pulling back the buckles, I felt the sick swirling dread which soon would become all too familiar. I took a deep breath, threw open the lid and there, neatly tucked into tidy little bundles were eleven pairs of tube socks. I couldn't help but laugh as I unfurled a pair and shoved my cold feet into them before searching the rest of the footlocker. Nothing.
I honestly can't remember what I did to pass the hours with the exception of the forty-five minutes spent on PillIdentifier.com, figuring out exactly what substances I was dealing with. But shortly before school let out, I took the crate of contraband downstairs and set it on the kitchen table where she'd be sure to see it when she came in. I wavered between terrified and furious, each emotion feeding back into the other. How things escalated so far so fast that afternoon is still unclear, but the confrontation became a blistering argument almost immediately.
One moment we were in the kitchen and the next, we were upstairs, screaming at one another loud enough to rattle the windowpanes. Jordan had yet to perfect what would soon become the standard defense; admit to everything after the fact, downplay the seriousness and ignore any consequences. Instead, she matched my anger and pushed even further.
At one point, she shoves the screen out of the bedroom window and lets it clatter to the cement walkway below. Then she clambers up into the sill, thumping steel-toed boots on the wall as she goes. She sits there, hands light on the window frame, leaning ever-so-slightly out into the afternoon breeze, having arranged her face into the angriest sneer she can conjure.
“Maybe I should just let go. Be done with it all.” She lobs the threat in my direction.
“Is that really what you want?” I ask, matching her tone for tone.
She shrugs, and then unexpectedly, the smile fades.
“Sometimes”.
I stand stock-still for what feels like forever. I will come to know the signs, the tremble of her chin even when her eyes are dark with anger or clouded with opiates, but I don't know them yet. Still, there is something in her expression that I've never seen before, something inside of her screaming for help. Not aloud, you understand. Never aloud. But there, nonetheless. Finally, I turn towards the hall and motion for her to follow.
“Then you need to come with me.” I say quietly, and strangely enough, she does. In many ways though, she never really left that windowsill, remained precariously perched for the next three years, leaning out into the void and hanging on by her fingertips. How I wish even now for just a wisp of the magic of watching Nessie float upon the curtain in the half-light, a too-brief calm at the center of the chaos which had become our lives.
Back in the ER, the no-nonsense Child Services advocate consulting on the case (and whose services I will later be billed $900 for on top of the $200 co-pay for an unscheduled hospital visit) sweeps back the curtain and comes in to tell us that she's secured Jordan a bed in the adolescent ward at Fremont Hospital.
“We're going to transfer you first thing in the morning get you all sorted out up there. You'll chat with the doctor and he'll be able to assess whether or not you have some depression, maybe need anti-depressants, counseling or...” Her sentence trails off, but she smiles reassuringly.
I consider the possibility of a mental health diagnosis and think back not just to this morning, but the last three years of anger and rebellion. There is a spark of relief, followed immediately by a wave of guilt. When the Social Worker leaves, I nudge Jordan's head with my own and whisper, “I'm sorry Jory. I didn't know you might be sick. I kind of just assumed you were being an ass.”
“That's ok.” she says, “So did I.”
NOTE: I just want to say a quick Thank You to the people who respond with empathy and kindness when I share stories about my daughter. Also, it seems important to mention that while the pieces I post here tend to be solemn and related to specific personal/political issues, I DO find a measure of joy, peace and often laughter in trying to recapture those lighter moments as well. I write more about my daughter (and other things) at laurustina.com. It is one of the best ways I know to ensure that her life continues to matter.